This is awful. Absolutely, completely, audaciously awful. But it’s also the best awful on the lot, Eliot reminds himself, looking at a doorframe sagging across a hall to make the world’s most dangerous game of limbo.
He doesn’t want to idle too long when the floorboards under his feet are rotten-soft and it’s getting harder by the moment to breathe. He crosses his arms over his head, glances back over his shoulder, squinting into the flame for the familiar hunch of Alley Guy’s shoulders before folding himself in half and ducking under, chin tucked hard against his chest.
He keeps moving forward, looking back. He’s still there. They’re still moving. Good. This is good. No one’s dead yet and this is good.
Until Alley Guy stops moving and he points and he’s yelling and the sound is demolished by the roar of the blaze but his meaning’s clear enough. Everything transitions quickly from surmountable bullshit to fuck this bullshit.
Stairs. The word is stairs. This should be even better, this should feel like home stretch, but the floor between him and the stairs is skeletal, bits of floorboards and fallen ruins of the floor above clinging to support beams over several stories of flame. Who even knows if there are stairs left on the other side.
“No. Hell no. No.” Eliot shouts at the situation more than anything, immediately regrets it. His throat clutches up tight like someone’s got a fist around his windpipe, gets him gasping into his shirtsleeve.
The debris is solid but likely to slip under the weight of one moving person, no less two. The support beams are thickest near the wall, where they bracket in, but his head’s already sloshing from lack of oxygen, and he wouldn’t consider himself particularly coordinated on a good day. He freezes, heads to where Alley Guy is standing.
“Hey. So, we’re about to fucking die. But I never thought anyone’d run into a burning building for me. It’s been real,” Eliot yells into his sleeve. What do people say when they’re about to tightrope walk an inferno with a perfect stranger? Probably not that. Oh. Gratitude.
“I mean thanks,” he screams before he toes out onto the first beam. He wobbles backwards, the wall at his back is hot as a brand through his clothes. The wall is a bad plan. Without support, he reels a little and settles a foot at the second. Moving slowly is a bad plan. He gets both feet on the beam and steps to the next quickly, sways so precariously he needs to bend deep at the knees to balance. Standing up is terrifying, his head rushing. Moving quickly is a bad plan. This is a bad plan.
A+ coping skills
He doesn’t want to idle too long when the floorboards under his feet are rotten-soft and it’s getting harder by the moment to breathe. He crosses his arms over his head, glances back over his shoulder, squinting into the flame for the familiar hunch of Alley Guy’s shoulders before folding himself in half and ducking under, chin tucked hard against his chest.
He keeps moving forward, looking back. He’s still there. They’re still moving. Good. This is good. No one’s dead yet and this is good.
Until Alley Guy stops moving and he points and he’s yelling and the sound is demolished by the roar of the blaze but his meaning’s clear enough. Everything transitions quickly from surmountable bullshit to fuck this bullshit.
Stairs. The word is stairs. This should be even better, this should feel like home stretch, but the floor between him and the stairs is skeletal, bits of floorboards and fallen ruins of the floor above clinging to support beams over several stories of flame. Who even knows if there are stairs left on the other side.
“No. Hell no. No.” Eliot shouts at the situation more than anything, immediately regrets it. His throat clutches up tight like someone’s got a fist around his windpipe, gets him gasping into his shirtsleeve.
The debris is solid but likely to slip under the weight of one moving person, no less two. The support beams are thickest near the wall, where they bracket in, but his head’s already sloshing from lack of oxygen, and he wouldn’t consider himself particularly coordinated on a good day. He freezes, heads to where Alley Guy is standing.
“Hey. So, we’re about to fucking die. But I never thought anyone’d run into a burning building for me. It’s been real,” Eliot yells into his sleeve. What do people say when they’re about to tightrope walk an inferno with a perfect stranger? Probably not that. Oh. Gratitude.
“I mean thanks,” he screams before he toes out onto the first beam. He wobbles backwards, the wall at his back is hot as a brand through his clothes. The wall is a bad plan. Without support, he reels a little and settles a foot at the second. Moving slowly is a bad plan. He gets both feet on the beam and steps to the next quickly, sways so precariously he needs to bend deep at the knees to balance. Standing up is terrifying, his head rushing. Moving quickly is a bad plan. This is a bad plan.